


swinging in a dream

by strangetowns



Category: Lovely Little Losers, Nothing Much to Do
Genre: F/F, Holding Hands, minor appearances from other characters, references to Hero's birthday
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-28
Updated: 2015-09-28
Packaged: 2018-04-23 19:12:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4888720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strangetowns/pseuds/strangetowns
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s probably something poetic about a moment like this, two girls who’ve known each other since almost before they could remember, clasping hands to face the cloudy unknown.</p>
            </blockquote>





	swinging in a dream

**Author's Note:**

> alternatively: Ursula and Hero hold hands.
> 
> Thank you thank you thank you to [athousandsplendidsunsets](http://athousandsplendidsunsets.tumblr.com/) for beta'ing this. I don't tell you this often enough but you are amazing. This is inspired by “[Blew My Mind](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1Nym1yP3W4)” by Dresses.

9\. They meet in the back of a classroom with colorful walls and tiny chairs, and it begins with a whisper.

“That was a good story.”

Ursula turns her head to the girl sitting next to her. Up until that point, it’s been hard to look at anyone else in the classroom. She’s not used to being in the same room as this many people, hearing this many voices at once. But she hears those words over everyone else’s, and they belong to a girl with bright eyes and a kind smile.

(Years later, looking back at this moment, this crucial point of time, it’s hard to know how quickly she trusted that smile. It could have been instantly or, if not, surely soon after. It’s hard to think of a time when she didn’t trust that smile.)

“Hero, right?” Ursula says.

The other girl nods, the overhead light gleaming dully in her pale hair. “And you?”

“Ursula,” she answers. “I liked it a lot, too.”

The teacher interrupts then, and they don’t talk until later, on the playground, when all the kids run out and Ursula stays standing by the door, and Hero does, too.

(It is the first time, like this. It won’t be the last.)

The other girl turns to her, a smile sliding onto her face easy as a breeze, and she holds her hand out. “Do you want to play?” she says.

(This is important. This has always been important. In this moment, though, Ursula doesn’t know how important it is, can’t know about the years that will follow this. All she knows is here is a girl with a pretty smile, and that girl is asking her to be a friend.)

“Yeah,” she says, and takes Hero’s hand, tentatively. They run, thoughts of woodland creatures on their minds.

There’s a lot from the early years Ursula doesn’t remember, shadowy blurs on the edges of her memory. But that’s a moment she remembers clear as day, the first time Hero ever took her hand, the first time they ever spoke. First times are important to her; they are the beginning of everything.

-

8\. She buys her first camera with her own money.

It’s less of an achievement than it sounds, namely because “her own money” means allowance from her parents she’s saved up for weeks, and “camera” means one of those disposable ones you can get hanging next to the counter. Her mom says she’s not old enough for one of the really expensive ones yet, but if she gets good grades in school she might get a digital camera for her birthday next year.

(Her parents aren’t very good at surprises. She doesn’t mind; she doesn’t know if she likes them all that much, honestly.)

When she brings it to school, she tries to be really sneaky about it. It doesn’t exactly work. She’s known Hero for a few years at this point, and it’s impossible to hide things from her best friend.

“Is that a camera?” Hero says at lunch when Ursula tries to take it out of her bag behind her back.

“Oh.” Ursula looks down. “Yeah.”

“That’s so cool, Ursula!” Hero says, face bursting into a bright grin. “You should take some pictures of me, sometime!”

Ursula grins back. “Is that a challenge?”

She ends up taking so many pictures of Hero that it fills up the film canister. They walk down to the store together and drop off the film together. Then they pool their money to get a brand new disposable camera – Hero mostly feels bad for “ruining” Ursula’s first camera, which Ursula declares is total nonsense – and spend the rest of the afternoon taking pictures of everything else, the street and the sky and the people passing by.

“Why do you like taking pictures, Ursula?” Hero asks.

“I guess…” Ursula shrugs. “I guess I just like remembering things.”

(When she’s older, people ask her this question quite often. She usually says something about how she likes the technical aspect of it, the challenge of capturing something interesting and original when there’s so much photography out there of the same things over and over again. At the core of it, though, she hasn’t really changed. She likes photography because it helps her catch the things that are worth remembering.)

“You should let me take a picture of you,” Hero says.

“No, that’s okay,” Ursula says with a shake of her head, her heart beating a little faster at the prospect. “I don’t like getting pictures taken of me. When I was six and my family tried to take one, I cried so much that they let me sit behind them in the picture so my face wouldn’t have to be in it.”

“But it’s only fair! You’ve taken probably dozens of me.”

“That’s okay,” Ursula repeats.

(If someone asked her to explain why she doesn’t like being in front of the camera, she wouldn’t be able to tell them, not when she’s this young. As a teenager, she always says she thinks her smile looks weird, which usually elicits some laughter and a compliment. It’s a safe answer, and Ursula likes safe answers. The truth is, though, maybe she’s just okay with not being remembered.)

About a week later, Ursula picks up the pictures and brings them to class the next day. Hero gasps with delight and grabs her hand excitedly. “Ursula, these are really, really pretty,” Hero says.

“You’re only saying that because you’re in so many of them,” Ursula says with a smile.

(It’s true, though. Her first pictures are really, really pretty.)

“You’ll continue doing photography, right?” Hero says. “For years and years?”

“For years and years,” Ursula promises. She doesn’t think about it, doesn’t think about how easy it is to promise years of her life to photography, or to Hero. She doesn’t have to.

-

7\. Over the next several years, their friend group grows, and they hardly ever do things by themselves anymore.

They do see a movie by themselves one time. Most of their friends are older than them, and they all have an exam coming up that they’ve been complaining loudly about for weeks. Hero says to Ursula, “Maybe we should try something new,” and Ursula doesn’t really feel like she has a choice, or like she wants it to begin with.

In the spirit of “new things”, when they’re at the theater, Hero suggests they see an action flick over the usual sappy romantic film. Not that Ursula feels like she’s missing out on anything (she’s not really one for the overly sentimental and usually poorly shot, to be honest) but she doesn’t really know if an action movie is really that much better. The camera work, at the least, is unlikely to impress her. Though really, who knows? She hasn’t heard of the movie. Maybe it’ll surprise her.

“I can’t believe I’m wasting actual money on this,” Ursula says as they take their seats in the back of the theater. No one else is in there. It’s the first time she’s ever been in a theater by herself. She’d figure all the open space would be intimidating, but the rows of empty chairs are freeing, in a way. The lack of obligation to be courteous puts her oddly at ease.

“What, you mean spending good quality time with me?” Hero says, pulling her face into an exaggerated pout.

“Yes, exactly,” Ursula says, deadpan. Hero shoves at her arm playfully, scoffing as if offended.

(No matter what she says, Ursula doesn’t actually think she’d ever mind, really, the opportunity to be with Hero. She’d be hard-pressed not to enjoy herself in her company.)

The previews start, then, and despite the lack of other people in the theater, despite the fact that they don’t have to, a silence falls over them. It’s a habit, probably, something ingrained into their consciences. Some scientific term for it exists somewhere.

(Ursula doesn’t mind, exactly. Silence has always been enough.)

Despite herself, she kind of gets into it. The special effects at the beginning are laughable, enough to make her actually laugh (louder, perhaps, than if they weren’t the only ones in the theater), but Hero laughs with her, and somewhere in the middle of it they abandon the pretense of silence and keep up a running commentary, pointing out inconsistencies, awfully cheesy lines.

“This would be a lot better if the main character was a lady,” Ursula whispers to Hero.

“Mm,” Hero says back. “But they’d never do that if they wanted to keep the love interest a woman. You know how Hollywood works.”

“I’d watch that movie.”

“So would I,” Hero says with a thoughtful nod. Ursula pretends her pulse doesn’t pick up a little to hear those words.

Somewhere in the middle of it, they stop talking. As much as Ursula pretends she can view films impartially, viewing them only from the lens of good camera work, she almost always gets invested in them, no matter how objectively terrible the film in question actually is. And this one is apparently no different. Toward the end, the main character’s love interest is on the verge of death, and Ursula is on the verge of tears.

She doesn’t look to the side. She doesn’t move or speak or anything, but when the tears spill over, Hero grabs her hand, instinctual. And Ursula doesn’t say a word.

(She doesn’t need to, does she? Not at this point. Not with Hero.)

-

6\. When she tells them, it’s a thing that’s been lodged in her heart for some time, a secret that’s swelled for weeks and months until it burst, and she can’t hold it in anymore.

(She knows they’ll be okay with it. That’s not the problem. The problem is finding the right time, the right place; the problem is knowing _how_ to say it.)

They’re in the back of Meg’s car, Bea up in the passenger seat. The breeze blows in from wide open windows, making it almost easy to forget the air conditioning is broken. The radio is on full volume, and there’s laughter; so much laughter.

Then Beatrice twists her head to say something teasing to them about the song playing on the radio – “please tell me you guys wouldn’t do something like _that_ for a boy” – and, heart stammering, Ursula says, without thinking (astonishing, really, Ursula doing or saying something without thinking is in itself unthinkable), “I don’t like boys like that.”

Things in the car don’t go silent, but there’s a hush, as the song itself goes quiet and everyone realizes at once the implications of what Ursula means.

She hurdles forward, because she’s gotten this far; she might as well go all the way.

“I don’t think I like girls like that, either. I do like girls, though. Romantically, I mean. Just not like that. I hope that’s okay.”

More silence. Then –

“Babe, I’m so glad you’ve got things figured out,” Meg says.

“Ursula, of course that’s okay, why wouldn’t it be?” Bea says.

And Hero doesn’t say anything at all, just reaches out and squeezes Ursula’s hand with a small, encouraging smile, and Ursula is sure she hasn’t ever felt this free.

(In another universe, maybe, she might never have found the courage to tell anyone. This is not that universe.)

-

5\. In another universe, Ursula wouldn’t feel more comfortable in someone else’s house than her own.

“I’m really glad your parents let you come this weekend,” Hero says with a bright smile when Ursula steps into her house. “It’s been a tough week, hasn’t it? I’m glad we can relax together.”

“Yeah,” Ursula says, looking down at the ground. “I’m glad, too.”

(This is what actually happened – Ursula asked her mother if she could go to Hero’s house for a sleepover, and her mother, predictably, had frowned.

“You’re with Hero Duke an awful lot,” her mom said.

“Mom,” Ursula said, her mouth dry, “I barely go over there once a week. Not even for sleepovers, most of the time.”

“Have you been focusing on your studies, at least? Your camera work? Are you thinking about doing that competition you tried for last year? With more hard work, I’m sure you could place this year.”

She knows her parents care a lot about her and her success and her well-being. Sometimes, still, it can be too much. Sometimes she can get tired of the way how conversations with her mother inevitably turn into checklists.)

It doesn’t take long for her to feel at home in the Dukes’ house, despite the shadows on her mind; it never does. Tonight, it’s just them (even Hero’s parents are out of town for the weekend). They heat up pasta made the previous night, and then they bake a cake because they can. They spread out blankets on the floor and turn off all the lights and watch _Phantom of the Opera_ , Hero’s favorite musical, which they’ve seen so many times they can both sing all the songs and recite all the words. They sing and recite messily, devolving into hysterical laughter whenever they mess up a line, which, that late at night, is often.

There’s a moment during “Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again”, as Christine walks among the frozen tombstones. Hero leans her head against Ursula’s shoulder, and everything is quiet. She could say something; she could always say something. But she doesn’t have to. She knows that, deeper than anything.

(Laying there in the dark, so close to Hero it feels like they should be melting into each other, Ursula realizes she hasn’t thought about her parents in hours. She hasn’t thought about much at all, which is astonishing, really; all she can think about now is how warm she feels.)

When the movie finishes, they lay there and let the credits roll by silently. Hero rolls over onto her back, and Ursula can tell, just like that, that she wants to tell her something.

“I think I like a boy,” Hero says.

“Oh. Who is it?”

“I should make you work for it.”

“I am being killed with suspense,” Ursula says in a flat voice.

“All right, all right, fine,” Hero says with a soft laugh.

(It’s so easy, at this point. Talking to Hero is so easy.)

“Benedick’s new best friend.”

“Claudio?”

“He comes over to sit with me in the stands after football practice. You know, whenever I go to cheer Pedro on?”

“He has a nice smile,” Ursula says.

(She deserves someone with a nice smile. Ursula is glad for it, glad for her. She knows Claudio will like her back; how could he not?)

They don’t say anything for a while. Ursula feels like it’s up to her to fill the quiet space between them with words, but her mind is still.

(She’s wished, many times before, for her thoughts to slow down; they’ve always moved too fast. She doesn’t know if she wanted them like this, though.)

“Ursula?”

(But she can’t deny she’s always liked the way Hero says her name in the dark, all hushed and breathy, like a secret. Maybe that’s what she wants to be. Or maybe she doesn’t want that. Maybe what she wants is to be important enough to be shouted about from rickety rooftops, to have bold headlines across national newspapers screaming her name. Maybe she just wants to be known. It’s hard to know what she really wants anymore, when the lines have been blurred practically from the moment they met.)

“Hero,” Ursula says back.

“I don’t want you to go. In the morning, I mean.”

(And it’s remarkable, honestly, how well Ursula can envision the face that goes with that voice, even when she can’t see anything at all.)

“Me neither,” she answers quietly, so quietly she’s afraid for a few moments that Hero might have missed what she said.

Then a hand sneaks into her own, fingers squeezing gently around her palm, and Ursula squeezes back.

(To be heard in a world that defines her by her silence is a pleasure so profound her gratitude cannot be expressed with words; to be heard by Hero Duke is the greatest pleasure of them all.)

They fall asleep like that, and when they wake up, their fingers are still intertwined. It’s the best she’s slept in ages, and if she dreamt, she doesn’t remember it.

-

4\. They’ve met often in Ursula’s dreams. On the tops of mountains, in the basements of urban skeletons that used to be skyscrapers, at the bottom of the deep, cold sea. She has an expansive subconscious, and she never knows what to expect from it, except that sometimes, Hero will be there.

(Sometimes, in the dreams, Hero looks into Ursula’s eyes and doesn’t recognize her. Those are the nightmares.)

Once, she finds herself on a playground, and Hero sits on a creaky swing. She doesn’t move, just sways slightly back and forth in the wind.

“I could reach the trees,” Hero says.

Ursula looks up. “There are no trees.”

Hero follows her gaze, and smiles. “I could reach the sky.”

“Don’t leave me behind,” Ursula says.

“Never,” Hero says, and reaches her hand out.

Ursula takes it, and they swing to the moon.

When she wakes up, she hugs her pillow and thinks about all the ways dream Hero isn’t real Hero, and all the ways that makes her happy, and all the ways that makes her sad.

(She shouldn’t be sad. She has no right to be. Her friends are happy. Hero is happy, and will probably be happy for a very long time, and that is all that she can ask for. She hopes her happiness with Claudio lasts forever.)

-

3\. Forever is shattered in the span of two minutes, with screamed voices that rip through the air like rusty knives.

In the wake of the night’s events (disaster, catastrophe, everything that could have gone wrong and then some; a word that means that everything feels broken, but she can’t think of a word that big), the house is quieter than Ursula feels like it should be. It’s like nothing ever happened, except the silence is deafening.

Balthazar’s taken his leave, squeezing Ursula’s shoulder gently and whispering to give him a call if they need anything else. Everyone else is gone, of course, everyone except for the Dukes, and Ursula has never felt more like an outsider than in this moment.

She should leave too. She should give Hero the space she needs, and deserves.

“Right,” she says to herself before she takes the stairs up to Hero’s room. Her steps are slow, creaky. They feel so heavy.

(She feels so heavy.)

She knocks on a door she’s known for years, for the first time in that long so nervous her heart feels stuck in her throat.

“Ursula?” She can hear Hero’s voice from within the room, faint, but there.

“How’d you know?” she asks, swallowing her feelings down.

“I told Ben and Beatrice they could go get some sleep. And you’re the only one out of everyone else who wouldn’t want to leave.”

Ursula laughs, despite herself; she wants to cry.

“Can I come in?” Her voice doesn’t shake, but it should. It should tremble like an earthquake.

There is silence. She is afraid.

(Not for herself.)

“Yeah.”

Her grip tightening on the doorknob, she twists it open.

Hero sits on her bed, still in her lovely blue dress, knees tucked under her chin. She isn’t crying, and somehow that makes it worse, the stillness of her now stark against the image of her incapacitated with sobs that’s been permanently seared into Ursula’s mind. It’s like she’s been drained.

(She hadn’t expected this, any of it, not in the slightest, and that’s one of the worst parts of it all. She should have seen it coming; she should have _known_. She doesn’t know what she could have done if she had. Anything is better than this. She decides, in this second, that she hates surprises.)

“I should leave,” Ursula says quietly.

Hero looks at her, then. She reaches out and takes hold of Ursula’s hand. It should be a weak grip, Ursula thinks, after everything that has happened tonight, but Hero holds onto her with the strength of someone who never wants to let go.

“No,” Hero says finally, even quieter. “Stay.”

 _(Please_ , she doesn’t say. Ursula doesn’t know what that would make her feel, doesn’t ever want to know.)

Ursula sits on the bed next to Hero, waiting for the other girl to pull her hand away. She doesn’t. They’re quiet for a bit.

(“Are you okay?” is a useless question. “Can I help?” and “how are you feeling?” and “I’m sorry” are just as bad. So she doesn’t say anything, even though it feels like this is one of the times she needs to say something the most.)

“I can’t do this,” Hero says.

(Neither can I, Ursula doesn’t say.)

“You should sleep,” she says. “You’ll feel better in the morning.”

“Why?” Hero says, and her voice wobbles ever so slightly. Ursula’s throat tightens; she swallows.

“Because no one deserves nightmares,” Ursula says.

Hero closes her eyes and leans her head back against the wall. Ursula thinks, here is a girl who everyone has always treated as a fragile, breakable thing, and now that’s been used against her in the most devastating of ways. How unfair is it that fragility is only a defense when left intact?

(She can’t fix Hero, either. She’s not the one who can pick up the pieces and put them back together. There’s only one person in the whole universe who can do that.)

“I think… I think I need space and time from people right now. I think that’s for the best.”

(Ursula decides she hates how apologetic Hero sounds. Of all the people who needed to apologize right now.)

“Of course,” she answers, as calmly as she can. “But if you need me – “

“I know.” Hero doesn’t smile so much as she lifts up the corner of her mouth. It’s weak and half-hearted, but it’s there. “You need to get some sleep too.”

(They both know she won’t. Not tonight.)

“Okay,” Ursula says. “Call me if you need anything.”

Hero nods, and Ursula gets up from the bed. Their hands slide from each other’s. And though she doesn’t want to let go, doesn’t want to leave Hero’s side – every nerve in her body, every neuron in her brain is screaming at her to turn back –she does it anyway, because she has to and because it’s the only thing she can do right now. She believes in Hero, and that should be enough.

(It’ll be better one day. It has to. Above everything else, she believes in that.)

-

2\. After weeks of turmoil, weeks of words that are spoken and not, it gets better.

(Not the same; who knows if it’ll ever be the same? Pieces that break apart can’t be put together the way they were before. But their cracks can be lined up, and they can be arranged into something that’s altogether a stronger whole. That’s what their friend group feels like, right now – broken once, but lined back up, and stronger, if not right now, then perhaps in the future.)

It’s Ursula’s idea, but she asks Hero first if she’s up for something like it.

(Theoretically, it shouldn’t matter, and Hero doesn’t have to go at all if she doesn’t want to, but Ursula knows the reason she wants a group picnic in the first place, and it’s not for herself. If Hero doesn’t want to go, she doesn’t want to have it.)

Hero says, of course. Hero says, did you even have to ask? She speaks with her eyes, and with her mouth she simply says, “Yes.”

So Ursula sends out group messages, seeks people out after lunch, solicits their help for bringing food. She could easily ask someone to help. She doesn’t anyway.

(If she’s being honest, she needs the business, the noise. Everyone’s been telling her, directly or indirectly, that she was one of the ones who stayed strong and steady through the whole mess, but she doesn’t feel that way, not in the slightest. She’s only moved forward so she doesn’t have to stop.)

The day of is cloudy, but she knows none of them agree with the sky, despite themselves – despite everything. She can see it in the set of their shoulders, the vitality in their laughs. It’s not easy, catching the fragility of their contentment on film, but she’s well-versed enough with her camera at this point that she feels like she can cobble together an adequate video. Most of her work is done for her, anyway; her friends are so bright.

(It’s good to capture those moments of happiness, of lightness. These are the things she wants to remember from this year, not the fear, not the shame, not the screams or tears. She’s preserved enough tragedy to last a lifetime; it’s time she filmed something new.)

Hero’s the first to leave the group for the crest of the hill. Soon, everyone else follows suit, tumbling down the slope of the grass, but Hero only stands. She stands among the vibrant hills, looking out over the swells and dips of the land, and there’s no sadness in her stare, or bitterness, or shame; there is only hope, the sort of hope that burns so brightly it drowns everything else out, swallows it in the wake of its light. Ursula’s camera lens could never capture a look like that, but she tries anyway, aiming her camera, because to catch even a fraction of something that beautiful is a noble goal to pursue, and she’s spent her whole life chasing after slivers of perfection; she has it down to an art.

As she approaches the other girl, Hero turns suddenly, her hair whipping across her face, and looks directly into Ursula’s eyes through the lens. Despite herself, Ursula’s breath halts in her throat.

Wordlessly, Hero holds her hand out, and though the sky remains overcast, a smile falls upon her face like a beam of sunlight.

(She’s spent her whole life chasing after smiles like that.)

She puts her camera down carefully, letting it hang from the strap around her neck, and gingerly takes Hero’s offered hand. It’s a lesson learned well by now, how to take the things other people offer her unashamedly, unapologetically. Hero’s fingers effortlessly slide into the spaces between hers. There’s probably something poetic about a moment like this, two girls who’ve known each other since almost before they could remember, clasping hands to face the cloudy unknown. Ursula could spend the rest of forever trying to come up with the words, the rhymes that capture how her heart feels in her chest right now, and she’d never succeed, but it’s people like Hero, really, who make the effort worth it.

“You’ve spent all day filming us,” Hero says, eyes on the horizon.

“You all deserve to be on film,” Ursula says.

Hero looks at her, her mouth silent, her eyes smiling.

“You deserve to be on film, too,” Hero says, quietly.

(Maybe there was a time in her life she would have rejected a statement like that. She doesn’t remember anymore when that time would have been, just knows that now, in the present moment, in this universe, hands entangled, she can see the truth in that statement, and she can appreciate Hero for saying it. That has to count for something.)

They leave the hills for a different place soon after that. Sitting in a circle that’s made up entirely of her friends, Ursula allows herself to realize how soon it will be until their graduation. Maybe she should feel sad about it, or jealous that it’ll be two years until her turn. It doesn’t feel like that short of a time, though. A lot can happen in a few months.

-

1\. They have a campfire in Hero’s backyard for the graduation party.

Ben suggests they burn all their notes and books from the year; Bea declares that’s the most ridiculous idea she’s ever heard. Eventually, a compromise is reached. They stand barefoot around the fire in a loose ring, throwing the spirits of their assignments and notes into the roaring flames. There’s laughter and loud music that blares from large speakers. There’s marshmallows, slightly charred sweetness melting on Ursula’s tongue. Balthazar’s brought his guitar, and when things quiet down he pulls it out and plays for a bit. His fingers dance over the song he wrote for Hero, and no matter how many times Ursula hears it she will never stop thinking it’s one of the most beautiful things she’s ever heard, will never stop thinking about the pain and the hope that song represents.

As the evening winds to an end, everyone slowly trickles out. Ben’s the first to go, and when he kisses Beatrice on the cheek everyone reacts appropriately raucously. Claudio is next, shooting an awkwardly apologetic smile at Hero before he takes his leave. Pedro and Balthazar leave together, Pedro coming up to murmur something in a low voice to Hero before he turns away and looks to Balthazar. Meg hugs everyone who’s left, curls her fingers in a cheeky wave.

Beatrice is the last to leave, and she doesn’t ask why Hero and Ursula stay sitting by the fire, close enough for their hips to touch, only shoots them a strange smile before slipping inside.

It’s quiet, for a moment, except for the crackling of the flames.

(It’s over, and even as Ursula watches the dying fire, she finds she can’t quite believe it. Maybe it won’t hit her, really, until they get back to school next year and she turns to expect someone who isn’t there.)

“Everything’s going to be different this year, isn’t it?” Hero says, face turned toward the light.

Ursula swallows her fear down.

 “Not you,” she says. “Not us.”

Hero looks at her, then, eyes shining in the dim light.

(And if Ursula used her imagination a little, maybe she’d see stars in those eyes, whole galaxies of them.)

“I will be different, though,” Hero says quietly, gently.

“You’ll be stronger.” Ursula says it with conviction, because she believes it, she believes in those words with every ounce of her heart. Hero _is_ strong, has always been, from the first day they pretended to be squirrels with each other in a shared childhood fantasy to the nights they spent awake in bed talking about the secrets of life and the universe, and the older she gets the stronger she’ll be. Her chin will never drop, as it never has in the past; of this, Ursula is sure, as sure as she can be about anything.

Hero doesn’t answer, doesn’t thank her for knowing what she meant (or perhaps what she needed to hear), doesn’t say a single word at all as she leans forward and takes hold of Ursula’s hand. It’s a motion that’s become as familiar to Ursula as the letters that make up her own name, and her palm doesn’t sweat.

(There has to be a science behind it, a gentle slope downward if she were to graph the correlation between how many times Hero’s held her hand and how startled she feels by the motion; it would trail off to a horizontal asymptote, because she’s lost count of how many times their fingers have caught hold of each other at this point, it must be a number that rivals infinity, and she doesn’t remember when she stopped feeling nervous about it, just that it happened a long time ago.)

“Not us,” Hero echoes. “I dunno, Ursula.”

Ursula’s heart stutters in her chest.

“Uh…”

“No, I didn’t mean it like that,” Hero says, eyes flickering downward as she laughs softly.

(Ursula doesn’t think about how easily Hero knows what she thinks, or what she fears. Her thoughts are loud enough as it is.)

“It’s just – “ Hero tightens her grip on Ursula’s hand, bites her lip. “What if – “ She looks up, then, straight into Ursula’s eyes, and Ursula can see flames flickering in those eyes, and she can see quiet determination, a mind made up.

And when Hero leans forward, Ursula leans forward too, instinctually, like she’s always been meant to do something like this. There have been moments like this in the wildest of her dreams, dreams she never dared to remember before now, moments where everything goes silent and everything feels right, but as Hero’s mouth catches on her own, she realizes, like a lightning strike, that those moments and this one aren’t alike at all.

And she thinks…

And she thinks…

And she thinks…

(This is the quietest her thoughts have ever been.)

It’s a sweet and gentle kiss. It’s a promise; it’s a question. It’s a feeling, and god, Ursula’s never felt like this before.

They part, and Hero leans her forehead against Ursula’s. She laughs against Ursula’s lips, breathy and delighted, and Ursula is dizzy, dizzy with relief and happiness and things that don’t really make sense and also sort of do. Her heart is full to bursting with dizziness, so much of it she’s overwhelmed with it, overwhelmed with the desire to reach out and touch Hero and confirm that she, this moment, is real. So she does, she reaches out and cups Hero’s face with her hand, the fingers of her other still intertwined with Hero’s, and Hero smiles at her, lingering and soft.

(And it’s real. It’s _so real_. Ursula’s never felt more alive.)

“Did anyone ever tell you,” Hero says, eyes wide and sincere, “how nice your smile is?”

“You’re beautiful,” Ursula says, throat closing up with feeling, and Hero’s fingers tighten around her own.

(She is. She’s beautiful. In the movies, she’d be the girl with an ethereal glow about her, a halo behind her head, perfectly pale in the dark.)

But they are here, and this is real life, and Hero is human, and so is she, and that’s the most beautiful thing Ursula can imagine.

-

+1. Saying good bye is easier than Ursula thought it would be.

Not to say that it’s not hard. It just doesn’t feel real, helping her friends pack their things into the back of a car and standing back as they give a small wave and drive off down a dusty road to an uncertain future. It doesn’t feel like they’re going to a place that’s almost on the other side of the country. It doesn’t feel like she’s not going to see them again for several months, if not longer. If she tries very hard, she can even delude herself into thinking for a few moments that they’re only going down to the grocery store and not a place she can’t follow, not this year, not right now.

(It only lasts for a few moments, though.)

Afterward, they – everyone who’s left – turn back toward the Dukes’ house. Quietly, walking next to an empty road, Ursula reaches for Hero’s hand. She doesn’t say anything, doesn’t jump or appear surprised, just accepts it like she’s been doing it her whole life, the only acknowledgement that this is the first time Ursula’s ever done anything like this a content smile tugging at the corner of her mouth.

(It’s the way it should be. They’ve always needed each other, Ursula thinks, and it’s only fair she starts showing it.)

When they get back to the house, they crash in the living room. Meg lets herself sprawl dramatically on the couch, grinning at the ceiling. She’s never looked so free.

Hero turns to Ursula. “I’ll go get you all some drinks,” she says, and it’s a statement meant for all of them, but she says it softly, and she squeezes Ursula’s hand as she says it.

Her fingers slide slowly from Ursula’s. On an impulse, before she has time to be nervous about it or despair over all the ways it could be the worst decision she’s ever made, Ursula hooks her fingers back for a few seconds and leans forward to press a kiss against Hero’s cheek. And Hero doesn’t blush, or turn away bashfully, or pull away. She only grins, the expression blooming across her face, bright and beautiful, before turning away and squeezing the tips of her fingers one last time.

(It was a good decision.)

“So how long’s that been a thing?”

She spins her head away from Hero and hazards a glance at Meg, who stares back with a steady, knowing smile.

“What thing?” Ursula says carefully.

Meg’s smile widens. There’s no judgment in that smile, not a single hint that she cares for anything but their happiness. It’s not a surprise to Ursula, not in the slightest, but it’s still a comfort, that reassurance.

“You and Hero,” Meg says, and though she knows it’s coming, when she hears it in _those_ terms, with _that_ voice, Ursula’s heart just

kind of

stops.

Because –

The thing about Hero Duke –

The thing that’s always poking at some region in the back of Ursula’s brain when she’s with her, which is a lot of the time, really –

(Though, logically speaking, it’s not really the back of the brain that controls emotions, is it, there are different regions all over the place that work together for various functions, and that seems rather appropriate for the evenings and nights when all the thoughts in her head are filled with a girl who never really leaves them in the first place)

The strange little prickly feeling that settles in the bottom of her stomach whenever she hears Hero’s laugh –

(And sometimes she hears it even when Hero’s not there)

The number of beats her heart skips over when Hero touches her, lingering and sweet little brushes of the skin, thudding under the bones of Ursula’s ribcage so profoundly her whole body feels like it’s pulsing –

(That’s not scientific, she knows, and there’s a scientific explanation for everything regarding the human body and the brain and emotions, and so maybe she’s being illogical, but it’s sort of impossible for her to think of a scientific way to explain the way love makes her feel)

The thing about Hero Duke, Ursula thinks, is that she doesn’t remember when it became a thing. It’s just always sort of been there, tucked away in the quietest, most still place inside of her.

(Maybe it’s even been there since the beginning.)

“It’s a long story,” Ursula says.

“Yeah,” Meg says, nodding thoughtfully. Her smile doesn’t fade. “Sounds about right.”

**Author's Note:**

> 10/4 - much thanks to [Danielle](http://meddleband.tumblr.com/) for drawing this [beautiful art](http://meddleband.tumblr.com/post/130511329866/this-was-inspired-by-sarahs-lovely-hersula-fic-i) based on the sleepover scene. Everyone should put this art into their eyeballs right now.


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